


The Temperance of Harry Potter

by MSW_Skule



Series: Knowing the unknowable [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Hogwarts, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Legilimency (Harry Potter), Magic, Mentions of Myth & Folklore, Necromancy, Room of Requirement
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-16 03:41:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28824624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MSW_Skule/pseuds/MSW_Skule
Summary: Petunia takes a tumble down the stairs.*Warning* The initial scene contains canon-typical abuse towards Harry Potter.
Series: Knowing the unknowable [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2083926
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4





	The Temperance of Harry Potter

"Look at me boy," Vernon wrenched Harry about, and pulled him face to face. "Don't look, don't look Goddamnit, I said can you fix it?!"

A sob choked out of the boy, " I-I tried uncle Vernon I swear I tried, but she fell and I tried to stop her" , Harry said as his head lolled toward Petunia's body, her neck twisted the wrong way round.

Vernon slapped the boy, "I know you tried you- _shut_ _up_ \- Can you fix her?!"

Harry Potter continued to sob uncontrollably.

A knock sounded from the front entrance. 

Vernon's head whipped around as he pushed the boy into the hall, "shut _up_ , damn you".

A knock sounded from the hall door.

Whoever had been at the door, they were now in his **house**! His initial thought had been one of the neighbors, to complain about the boy or gossip with his wife or complain about Dudley. Now he had only one thought: "Freaks! In My House! I've got to grab the pistol!" As he turned to move up the stairs, he found himself sitting in his favourite chair, holding a hot cuppa. 

Before confusion could get the better of his good sense, a voice he had heard but once prior prodded him to keep quiet.

"I am terribly sorry my boy, I hadn't thought- well, regardless these will be your last moments here."

The Old Crackpot had been talking to the Boy!

* * *

Dumbledore had seen and heard more than enough. Between the spell damage on the house and the near inferus that had attacked the boy, He was quite sure this was the wrong environment for young Harry. Albus incinerated what was left of Petunia Dursley, cleaned the walls, and wiped Vernon's memory, before tearing down the wards and whisking Harry Potter away.

* * *

Harry woke in a grand four poster bed, at the top of a tall tower, in a castle made of moving stone. After calming down, he decided to explore and see just where exactly he was, and if he could get out. 

He got lost immediately.

If he wasn't mistaken, the tower he had been in had been around here somewhere, but it seemed as though it had disappeared entirely. He figured the Old man(whom he had assumed was a dream) had put him here, but just where was here? He must have passed this same Painting of dancing monsters twelve times in the last hour. But, "has that door been there this **whole** time?" Incredulous, He spoke to an empty hallway.

Harry opened the door slowly, it was banded in heavy iron. Inside was a desk, a set of seven chairs of varying make, a working water fountain, and rows upon rows of books. There were also skeletons of cats, snakes, birds, and even humans, lining the walls between the shelves.

Such an abject and stark reminder of death nearly sent him hyperventilating. As he calmed he remembered the taste of magic as he had tried so, so hard to bring back his aunt. The grief was fading fast from the boy who could not remember her fondly. The taste, acrid and cloying, bothered him. His eyes alighted to the skeleton of the bird. The candle light flickering, he closed the door behind him, and perused the books on the desk. One a book of anatomy of corvids, another a manual of conjuring feathers, and another a journal full of runes, still another a tome of the arts of the unliving.

* * *

It was so simple written out. So clinical, and hardly any fuss at all. Here, a rune on bone, there, a little push of magic. But the bird was cold. It hopped about and flew around the room, but only by his will. He reached out with his magic and guided the bird back to him. The last Potter tasted alkyl and dirt, sweets and mold. The bird pecked his hand and flew out the window _by it's own will_ , bloody beaked and cawing.

Harry's Stomach rumbled as he made his way down toward the Great Hall, after asking a portrait where he might find food, hopeful for lunch. Though he admitted, the sun was rather low for such prospects.

The doors of the hall had been flung open, and the smell of cinnamon, and ginger, lemon and butter, drifted by. The Old Man sat at a table full of odd angles, covered in sandwiches and sweets, alone but for a matronly looking woman, her face hard angled and prim. 

"Ah, young Mr. Potter, how it gladdens me to see you awake and eager to explore." The Man spoke with such a charisma it made it difficult to not ask a thousand questions all at once. "Alas, it seems you have run afoul of some dangerous path, How came you by such an injury?" The question neatly stuned Harry, as he had near forgotten his bloody hand. 

He felt, rather than knew, that it was best not to explain the situation he had found himself in for a second time. "I'm sorry sir, I saw a black bird sitting in a window, near the tower, but when I got close, it pecked me and flew off", he said, his face scrunched up in a fleeting look of frustration.

The woman's eyes rolled with an amount of exasperation Harry was sure was reserved for teachers. "Albus, is it really appropriate to ask such while he is still bleeding on the floor?"

As the woman stood and stepped toward Harry, the now named Albus, began introductions. As Minerva McGonagall drew a long stick from her pocket, Harry parsed what knowledge he could of his situation. He supposed it was not at all shocking that one might heal with magic as well as reinvigorate one who could not be healed. As Harry stretched the new skin of his palm, he glimpsed no scar, though the bird had pierced him deep.

* * *

Dumbledore was concerned. Though young Potter had not truly lied to him, he was withholding something. Albus could not tell what, as the boy had yet to look him in the eye. He sighed. With Tom it had been simple, a close eye and a steady hand would have been enough had the mad fool not delved so deeply so soon. But Albus had failed. 'It will not be so with this one,' he could not help but think.

After Harry had finished eating, Albus called the same house elf that had previously taken the boy to his current abode. "Neebly", he called. The elf cracked into the hall and bowed so deeply that it's floppy ears nearly touched the ground. 

* * *

Harry tasted the thing before he heard or saw it. Mold and fern, twilight and mischief, tickled his tongue, and left his nose feeling like a lightning storm was about. It's eyes were bulbous and it's smile broad as it took in the now wakeful Potter.

"You is be calling Neebly, headmaster sir?" It's voice squeaky and high, though it rumbled 'round Harry's head like a boulder. The Old Man's eyes never left Harry's face, and as the boy's own eyes went wide they flung around to Minerva's and then to his own. 

* * *

A sense of a ship adrift, seeking port in a storm, near overwhelms Potters thoughts, 'help' it calls, 'any help will do'. 

A sorcerer, facing a terrible wyrm, knows he will not survive his ancient foe. 'help' it cries, softer than before, 'i face what cannot be faced'.

A woodsman quails before an elf, 'help' he calls though he knows he is alone, 'fear is near my master'.

* * *

They are alone, Potter and Dumbledore, seated aside a short table, the elder in a chair of rich leather, bound simply, the youth upon a couch, corderoy, and deeply green. His instinct to calm the child had, for a lack of a better term, reset the scene. 

"Do you enjoy ten-pin bowling, Harry?" Albus asks, as he pulls a lemon drop candy from the void, and takes it into his mouth. Harry doesn't answer until he has unwrapped a bit of green foil. "I've never had a chance to try," his voice is near a whisper as he snaps the confection in half, saving a piece for later. Harry savors the chocolate and mint. 

"A wondrous and dangerous thing is magic. I know a Muggle, that is, a mundane man, who claims magic is but a sword with no handle. Imaginative, but foolish." Albus frowned as he rolled the sweet round, cheek to cheek. "It is Intention that is our handle, it is Willpower that is our guard, and it is Knowledge that is our temper."

Harry sat enraptured, soaking in the magic inherent in the old man's speech.

"You need not fear Neebly, nor most of his kind. They are bound, by fate and by flaw, by word and by law. These are powerful things to the elves, and they are much diminished from the elder things we once warred against." Dumbledore's eyes were sorrowful and thoughtful as he spoke.

Harry Potter stood and was again in the Great Hall, though he'd never left. 

The Headmaster bade the waiting elf take the boy back to the tower in which he slept in prior, with the understanding that this grand castle was his new home.

Neebly is kind, though Harry is unlikely to test how deep his kindness runs, and instructs the young master how to use the 'come-and-go room', that is to be his own, for a time.

* * *

Harry potter falls to sleep, candles all but burnt out, heavy tomes round him, glasses still on his face.

Albus Dumbledore falls to sleep, a cap on his head, papers strewn about his desk and a fear in his heart.

Neebly sleeps soundly for the first time in years, savoring the young Potter's fear.

**Author's Note:**

> Albus is rather liberal with his mind reading, which always struck me as a potent storytelling tool, though I fear I've not done it so much justice as I'd like. The last prologue. I should like to have the start of the story out by the end of February. Starting the story was difficult, but now it seems to have a life of its own. Thanks for reading!


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